16 Clean WordPress Themes for the Minimalists

Clean design was a huge web design trend in 2016. Closely related to minimalism, the emphasis is on functional design and plenty of space. Less on frills.

For those wondering how to start a WordPress blog, with a clean WordPress theme, there are no distractions from the quality of your content and your images. Both need to be top-notch to impress your visitors and work for you as a lead-generation tool.

Here are 17 of the best clean WordPress themes for your next website.

1. The Essence

The Essence is a beautiful and chic theme. While it is designed to be used for a magazine or a blog, it is versatile enough to be put to any use. It especially shines for content-rich sites.

The Essence boasts over 17 layout options, which run the range from simple to complex. You can easily customize your layout too using the Meridian Styler, a powerful front end styler.

2. The Traveler

The Traveler is a simple, clean theme based on an elegant grid. Although it’s designed for blogging, it also uses large featured images so your site won’t lack on visual impact.

This theme has multiple post types, such as image posts and gallery posts that make it perfect for travel bloggers, craft bloggers, or for graphic designers or artists to display their portfolio.

The Traveler also has custom widgets for About Me and social sharing. You’ve also got control of the layout, fonts, colors, spacing, and more with the Meridian Styler. You can easily customize the appearance of your site.

Key Features

Designed to be mobile responsive

Customizable layout options

Meridian Styler gives you unlimited options to customize the appearance of your site

6. Owl

Owl is a simple and elegant theme that will make your site stand out from the rest.

To start you off, Owl comes with 3 different blog layouts and various post types with an easy drag and drop function so you can change the order of your posts. These layouts can easily be customized to make them your own using Theme Options powered by the WordPress customizer.

Owl is packed with features to help your blog shine. There are 9 custom widgets, featured sliders, shortcodes for Drop Caps, Font Awesome, and a stunning full-width Instagram feed for the footer.

7. Wright

Wright is a clean and minimalist theme that puts the spotlight on your images. To show off your photos even better, Wright gives you thumbnail to lightbox gallery view options so your visitors can see your images up close.

The theme features top navigation with a cascade menu style, keeping the main body of your site clean and uncluttered. Wright also comes with integrated Google Fonts and typography color options as well as customizable background colors.

8. Wintersong

Wintersong is a clean and simple theme that’d suit any content-focused site. Powered by the Genesis Framework, it’s easy to get started with Wintersong. With just a few clicks you can begin creating your own unique site using the powerful Theme Options and Theme Customizer.

This theme comes with multiple custom page templates which makes things even easier for you. Wintersong also has a fully customizable header and two widget areas.

10. Jason

Jason is a modern and easy-to-use WordPress theme for bloggers, writers, and publishers of all kinds. For those of you who are interested in creating a mood around your stories, this theme helps you achieve that by the blink of an eye. Its eye-candy look-and feel next to the witty features allow you to showcase your content (text, video, photo) in memorable ways.

11. Beautiful Pro

Beautiful Pro is a clean and customizable theme that runs on the Genesis Framework.

This theme comes with multiple custom page templates which can be customized with the powerful Theme Options and Theme Customizer tools. To further personalize your page the header is fully customizable and there 10 widget areas you can use to add content to your site.

12. Portfolio

Portfolio is a clean and minimal theme designed to showcase your work with style.

This theme boasts advanced portfolio filters to help your visitors find what they’re looking for. You can also customize the number of columns and change the image size. Portfolio features Ajax loading so your images will load smoothly. And with social media integration, you can share your works easily.

Portfolio comes with many customization options such as Google Fonts, unlimited color and background options, and custom widgets.

13. Uncode

Uncode is a clean and stylish theme that is easily customized.

The theme boasts 30+ layouts you can import with a simple click, or you have the option to build your own from scratch using the Visual Composer. For extra customization, there are 6+ menu types, 16+ portfolio layouts, and infinite layout and font options.

Uncode has full WooCommerce integration and comes with carousel options that work well if you have an online store. Revolution Slider, LayerSlider, and iLightbox are also included in the box.

14. X | The Theme

X is a powerful and clean WordPress theme that is endlessly customizable. This theme comes loaded with multiple pre-made unique designs you can use as a jumping-off point for your own content.

X can be fully customized using the WordPress Customizer and you can choose between Cornerstone or Visual Composer to use as your drag and drop page builder.

To make your life easier there are 40 custom shortcodes built for X to make your website stand out. X also comes packed with features such as WooCommerce integration, bbPress forum software, BuddyPress, Slider Revolution, integrated social media sharing, iLightbox, custom post formats and custom widgets.

15. Adios

Adios is a clean and stylish multipurpose theme. It comes with numerous page templates you can use to create stunning pages with Visual Composer. With the live preview customization, you can see your changes in real time.

This theme is loaded with 33 custom shortcodes which allows for more personalization within the theme. With various post formats, header and footer layouts and advanced blog, and portfolio layouts you can show off your content in style. For your portfolio, there is a filtering option and you can add parallax layouts.

16. Trendomania

Trendomania is a stylish template with a tender feminine design. Beautiful slider, well-though layout with lots of white space, simple typography make it a perfect fit for fashion and lifestyle blogs.

The template runs on the latest version Cherry Framework 5, which provides you with smooth installation, and maintenance process. The customization process is simplified due to the Power page builder and Live Customizer. Multiple widgets and content modules allow you editing your layout in WYSIWYG mode.

The theme is licensed under GPL v3.0 which means that you can use it for unlimited number of projects and edit its source code.

17. Sondos

If you’re after a clean WordPress theme, Sondos is a great choice. It is fully customizable through the WordPress customizer which gives you access to unlimited colors, Google fonts, and more.

Sondos boasts 3 home page layouts, 7 post formats, and 2 archives templates, giving you a great base to create your own unique site. The theme also comes with 6 custom widgets as well as social media button integration and author box and related posts box support.

would you mind sharing where you get all the “cartoonish” images for your posts featured images? They kind of look like flat icons or something… I have tried, in vain, looking everywehre but cant find a source with this type of images…

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